ABSTRACT
Investigations of client satisfaction services have shown that current theoretical models of psychological practice (e.g., theories of psychotherapy, theories of personality) have caused many lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) individuals to refrain from seeking mental health assessment services (Cochran, Sullivan, & Mays, 2003; Israel, Gorcheva, Burnes, & Walther, 2008). Transgender individuals are also extremely vulnerable to issues of psychological distress and mental health concerns (Budge, Adelson, & Howard, 2013). Concurrent with these findings, there is a growing need for practitioners to deliver assessment services (and to train future professional mental health clinicians to also deliver such services) that include an “assessment approach model that includes attention to … cultural components of health” (HSPEC, 2013, p. 411). Further, the literature has consistently documented that issues of sexual orientation and gender identity are not interpreted or contextualized correctly in the context of psychological assessment (Grant, Mottet et al., 2011; Kessler, Berglund, Demler, Jin, & Walters, 2005). These findings demonstrate the need for those providing health care services to pay particular attention to issues of sexual orientation and gender identity in psychological assessment. In response to this need, we will explore, in this chapter, issues of sexual orientation and gender identity in personality assessment and provide implications for clinicians.
